


Laid Bare

by MilenaDaniels



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: (Referenced) - Freeform, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Hargreeves Lives, Buried Alive, Crying Diego Hargreeves, Crying Klaus Hargreeves, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Injured Diego Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves Gets Hugged A Lot, Klaus Hargreeves Has Flashbacks, Klaus Hargreeves Has PTSD, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Whump, M/M, Not Beta Read, POV Alternating, POV Diego Hargreeves, POV Klaus Hargreeves, Post-Season/Series 01, Protective Diego Hargreeves, References to Klaus Hargreeves' special mausoleum training, Sober Klaus Hargreeves, Teen Diego Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves, Temporary Character Death - Klaus Hargreeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26332705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilenaDaniels/pseuds/MilenaDaniels
Summary: “So,” Five continued matter-of-factly, “you’re in a cramped, human sized box, in a graveyard where you can’t see light or hear sounds. What are the odds that you’re above ground?”Diego blinked. He thought he’d been smelling the iron of his blood pooling and drying under his head but it was humid in here, and musty.“Fuck,” Diego said.Diego and Klaus are buried alive together.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 57
Kudos: 569





	Laid Bare

**Author's Note:**

> First fic in years because apparently TUA (and one Klaus Hargreeves) does that to people! 
> 
> Set sometime after season 1, in a reality where Ben was brought back to life by their return to the right 2019 timeline (let's just go with it). Also invented a mob syndicate because apparently it's not known what city/region TUA takes place.

Diego awoke in darkness and in pain. 

At first the darkness was explained by his inability to open his eyes, his lids feeling like they’d been painted shut at the seam. But when he finally mustered up the strength, he was met with more darkness. He was laying on his left side, boxed in, as he discovered when he tried to lift his hand to poke at the centre of agony at the back of his head and he smacked into something that felt like wood. His arm dropped back down where it had been, and only when its resting place startled did he realize there was someone here with him.

In his defense, he was seriously in a lot of pain. Fucking head wounds.

Warily, he lifted his arm off the body, and held it in the air. When the body didn’t shift further, he brought his hand down and poked cautiously. The body felt stiff, but it twitched again in response to his finger and he was satisfied he wasn’t spooning with a corpse.

He patted around with his palm until he felt a thin, bare forearm, which he shook lightly.

“Hey,” he croaked. “Hey!”

Immediately, the body lost its stiffness and tried to turn but the lack of space meant Diego almost took a headbutt to the face. 

“Diego?”

Relief warred with annoyance because of course it was _him_. “Klaus? What the hell, man?”

“What the hell is right. And may I add a ‘where the hell?’ What is this,” his hand smacked painfully against the wood above them as he misjudged its distance, “ — ow! — is this — are we in a box?”

Diego could recognize the feeling of hard wood along his back and at his heels, and when he pushed a hand forward across his brother, his palm met more wood much more quickly than he would have liked. He had just enough space to lever himself up about three or four inches before he met the top. On the plus side, while the top of the box was about six inches away above his head, his stretched out toes couldn’t feel the bottom. Also, his feet were very cool.

“Looks like. Did they take our shoes too?”

“Looks like,” Klaus parroted, “feels like overkill, to be honest.”

“What the fuck — _ah_ — happened?” A gasp punctuating the middle of Diego’s sentence when his head pounded so violently all of a sudden that he couldn’t breathe. 

“Are you okay?” Klaus asked, his voice small with worry.

“Were we on a mission?” Diego pressed, hating the vast blank space between then — being at the butcher? — and now. 

Since getting back to 2019, they’d slowly been starting to gear the Academy back into what it was created for — under new management, of course. Five and Pogo had taken the reigns of finding them places and situations that needed their expertise, and Luther and Diego had taken on training regimens, both because half of them were out of shape, metaphysiologically speaking, and because Vanya and Klaus were only just starting to get a grasp on their powers. Allison was splitting her time between them and being with Claire in California, but she was in town now, Diego remembered. She’d flown in earlier that day, so they were going to have a sit-down dinner together, the whole family. Which was why Diego and Klaus had been out, picking something up at the butcher...

Klaus tried to turn suddenly, but he only managed to jam his shoulder into Diego’s chest and kick him in the shin with his heel. “Did you hit your head?” 

“And every other part of me feels like, watch it!” He griped, grabbing Klaus’ bicep firmly and shoving him back to where he’d been. “Would you just tell me what you remember?”

He felt more than heard Klaus take a deep breath, and when he spoke, it was like a tightrope walk between pageantry and shame. “We...were out, getting the roast for mom. And we ran into some old friends. Some of _my_ old friends. My, well, not friends I suppose so much as people I stayed with and then stole from and hoped to never see again.”

At Diego’s world-weary sigh, Klaus tensed up. “In my defence they were absolutely blitzed out of their minds at the time, they shouldn’t have remembered anything! Especially not after however the fuck long it’s been. Ages, Diego! It’s been at least ages!”

Diego skirted past the reminder that Klaus had no concept of time due to a consistent stream of mind-altering substances and just ground his teeth.

“Never let it be said you don’t make a fucking impression.” He was aiming for a light tone but by the way Klaus curled himself away, he figured it didn’t land. “So we ran into some idiots you stole from. Is it me or is this a little much for sticky fingers however long ago?”

“I agree!” Klaus cried, indignant. “Completely disproportionate response to the situation! I couldn’t have taken more than a couple hundred bucks, if that!”

“You don’t remember what you took, do you?”

“Well, they all kind of blur together… Ages, Diego! Ages ago, it was!”

Diego couldn’t just sigh and walk away like he would otherwise, so he sighed and let his head tip forward to knock lightly against the back of Klaus’. 

“I do think, by the — well let’s call a spade a spade — _theatrics_ of this whole thing that these may have been the guys I sort of maybe thought could potentially be...friendly...with Madame Mary.”

Diego turned his head and opened his eyes to face the darkness and a God that _clearly_ did not exist.

“You stole. From the mob.”

“Do we still call them the mob? In 2019? Isn’t it more organized crime or syndi—”

“Klaus!”

“It’s not like it was on a business card!” Klaus protested with the signature whine when he knew he fucked up but still wanted sympathy. “And it wasn’t ‘The Mob’, it was like...The Mob’s neighbour’s cousin or something. Who knows. I don’t even know, actually! It could be totally unrelated! I’m putting this out there as a theory but I could be way off!”

Diego felt a growl building in his chest. “Someone let you into their house, probably to get high, and you stole from them, no doubt to get high again, and now karma is not only taking a shit on you but I’m caught in this shitstorm because of course I am. Doesn’t sound way fucking off to me!” He cut himself off from yelling after that, not for lack of wanting to, or to avoid being too cruel in the heat of the moment, but because yelling made stars shoot out in front of his eyes. 

Klaus didn’t say anything more either. Diego’s arm was still laying stiffly along his side and he could feel how tense Klaus had gotten, but before he could feel bad about it, Klaus deflated completely and rolled slightly onto his stomach, just that little bit to get away.

They stayed there in silence until Diego’s count of 56, when finally it felt like his head wouldn’t blow right up off his neck. There was no point antagonizing the situation any further, they needed to get out of here, he needed to get his head checked out and then he’d go punch something or someone so hard he’d break a knuckle. 

He pulled his arm off Klaus and tried to reach for his back pocket. He could feel his phone was still there between his ass and the wood at his back, but he couldn’t get enough clearance to bend his arm and reach the pocket. 

“Hey, I need you to get my phone. Back pocket, right hip.”

It spoke to how bad Klaus felt that he didn’t crack a single innuendo or inappropriate come on, didn’t even try to cop a feel. He just reached backwards, felt for the plastic lump, and pulled the phone out quickly. They fumbled to get it into Diego’s hand and ultimately he had to use Klaus’ ribs and shoulder as an armrest to hold it up far away enough that he could see. 

The light was minimal when he opened it and he cursed himself for choosing a phone to suit his vigilante business. He would have liked to see more than the inch of Klaus’ vest next to the phone. Stowing that disappointment, he found the number he was looking for and dialled. Rather than try to bring the phone to his ear, he put it on speakerphone.

“Diego?” Allison’s tinny voice answered.

“Allison, hey.”

“Oh my god, where are you? You’ve been gone all night. Is Klaus with you?” After so many years living on his own, spending most nights doing the vigilante thing and having no healthy schedule, it was weird to have someone be worried when he didn’t show up for supper. It was nice, too. 

“Yeah, he’s with me. I don’t know where we are. We got jumped and now we’re in some wooden box.”

“A wooden box?” There was mumbling on the other side of the line as the others tried to listen in. “Do you — what do you mean a wooden box?”

Diego almost rolled his eyes before he remembered that would hurt. 

“I mean we’re in a box. It’s made of wood. Like trees but flatter. It’s small, we’re squished in here like sardines. There’s no light either, we can’t see shit.”

“Can you hear anything?” Luther asked, sounding farther away.

“Hold on.” Diego went quiet and listened, only now taking in the total absence of sound. “Nothing. Can’t hear a thing.”

“Can we, like, use his cell phone signal to get their location?” Allison asked.

“Sure, just let me pull my CSI lab out of Luther’s ass,” Five offered helpfully. 

“Diego,” Vanya called, sounding like she was getting near the microphone. “Can you open your Maps app? If it’s working it could tell us exactly where you are.”

Diego bit back an angry sigh and cursed himself and his fucking stubbornness.

“He has a flip phone,” Ben pointed out, a thick layer of judgement in his tone.

“Okay, I am getting everyone an iPhone when this is over,” Allison declared.

“You have no idea where you are?” Ben pursued.

“I don’t.” He wanted to jab Klaus and say _These are your friends, don’t you know their M.O.? You tell me where they’d take us_ , but for all that he was pissed at his brother, he didn’t want the others to be too. Not while he was already down. Instead, he tapped Klaus with the phone. “Any ideas?”

Predictably, Klaus shrugged, but then said, “Pretty sure we’re in a graveyard.”

“How do you figure?”

In the darkness, Diego thought he could see Klaus hold up his hand and wiggle his fingers.

“You can like, what...feel the spirits?”

“Sure.”

“Great.”

“So,” Five recapped matter-of-factly, “you’re in a cramped, human sized box, in a graveyard where you can’t see light or hear sounds. What are the odds that you’re above ground?”

Diego blinked. He thought he’d been smelling the iron of his blood pooling and drying under his head but it was humid in here, and musty.

“Fuck,” Diego said.

“Oh my god.” Vanya.

“Now for the million dollar question. Can either of you feel a breeze?”

Diego’s stomach sank like a stone in water. 

No. 

No, he could not.

* * *

After Klaus relayed the details of where they’d last been, and a description of the guys who’d jumped them — and after Five had mocked Diego for his glass head — they’d hung up. It would have reassured everyone to stay on the line but the battery was at 58% but there was no saying how long they’d need it for. 

“We’ll be fine,” Diego told his brother, who’d offered nothing since the phone call. “They’ll find us.”

Nothing.

“Klaus? You still with me? You know you being quiet makes me nervous. Makes me think you’re plotting something.”

A huffy sigh, then. Klaus was fine, just in a mood. He’d been having more of those since he got sober. Diego would never want his brother to go back to chasing those self-destructive jollies, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss the effortless, unsinkable cheer. Hints of it were still there but it seemed like a longer reach. 

“You hurt?” he asked suddenly, realizing he’d never checked. Without bothering to wait for Klaus’ answer, he flipped his phone open again and tried to use the almost nonexistent light to look for blood or other wounds. Nothing was immediately visible beyond pale skin, and when he reached his face, Klaus quickly flipped the phone shut with a wet and gruff, “You’ll waste the battery,” and Diego felt low. Lower than low. He tried to hold onto the seething anger over Klaus’ bullshit getting them — getting _him_ — in yet another crapshoot situation, but he couldn’t. 

Diego set the phone down in front of Klaus’s stomach where he’d be able to grab it, and used his newly freed hand to pull Klaus back against him.

“We’re gonna be okay,” he said again, his voice firm. Nobody got to decide their fates but them and he was deciding right here and now that they were walking away from this shit. Klaus used the couple of extra inches he gained from being pulled backwards to curl into himself even further, but most of his back remained pressed into Diego’s stomach, and Diego took comfort from it.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, they got a check-in phone call that jerked them both awake from naps they hadn’t meant to take. Diego’s headache was simmering down into a real firm ache instead of a jagged stab, but the blaring ringtone was not helping. 

The others had made their way to the neighbourhood they’d been taken from, and Five was jumping from house to house but they weren’t getting anywhere. 

When the call was over, they returned to laying quietly in the dark. With the pain becoming tolerable, it was leaving room for the mounting anxiety that came with being buried the fuck alive to spread. Diego tried to drift away and pretend this wasn’t a box they were forced into, that it was just their really, really hard beds at the Academy. That they were banged up but curled together because training had been hard that day and they needed to be soft with each other for a bit. That it was just a humid day and the air between them was muggy because— 

“Hey,” Diego called as his mind whirred back into action, processing details he’d missed in the chaos of waking up. “Were you awake earlier?”

He felt the air shift in front of his face as Klaus turned his head slightly. “I’ve been awake plenty of times. I’m really good at it. Watch, look, I’ll do it now. See? Ta-da.”

Diego didn’t have the room to slap him in the back of his head so he settled for slap-pushing his hip, pretending that the snark didn’t unscrew a knot of anxiety in his chest.

“Idiot. When I woke up and I poked you. Were you already awake?”

“Oh. Yeah? Why?”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

A lot of conversations with Klaus took directions nobody could expect, especially when he’d been high. But while the intensity of the detours fallen with his sobriety, their unexpected nature did not diminish. You throw out a soft opening gambit to pass the time and suddenly you’re wondering how the answer to such a simple question can return a convoluted lie.

“It’s not good to wake up people with head injuries,” Klaus said.

“That’s people who are sleep walking, you absolutely should wake up people with head injuries,” Diego countered. 

“Oh, shoot, well now I know. Mea culpa, brother mine. I’ll definitely pocket that away for next time.”

“You also didn’t know I had a head injury until I woke up and told you.”

“I suspected!” 

“You didn’t suspect shit. How long were you just sitting here doing nothing before I woke up?”

“Oops, sorry, I left my Rolex in my other panties. Let me just consult my sundial here. Yeah, here we go, oh it’s stuck at ‘how the fuck should I know, a while!’” 

“Klaus.”

And when backed into a lie he couldn’t smile his way out of, Klaus did what he always did, which was to attack. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”

“I’m not accus—”

“Is this a Mom Killed Dad thing? Gonna tell me I’m in league with the thugs who brained you and stuck us in a box? Did I lure you out there for them too?”

“For fuck’s sa—”

“And what foresight, to trap myself in here with you! That would _have_ to throw you off my scent. You know, until I fucking died in this ready-made casket. But you know me, always taking things just a step too far.”

“Yes, you do! Always! Case in point, holy shit. I’m not accusing you of anything, it was just weird!” 

And then like a glass blown figure thrown onto the ground, the truth broke out.

“Weird? What’s weird?” Klaus scoffed. “I woke up in the dark, completely out of it, and boxed in between a wall and some big guy I didn’t know. Hate to break it to you, bro, but that was most of my mornings since I left home. You get used to it. And you get to knowing real quick that whoever’s back there will be a lot more pleasant if you’re not a fighter. And if you can squeeze out just a few more minutes of quiet time before they wake up, well hey, all the better.”

“Jesus christ, Klaus,” Diego breathed out, feeling like the wind got punched out of him. 

Klaus sighed and decided this line of questioning was over. “We should be conserving air.”

Diego indulged him, mostly because he didn’t know how to respond between the warring emotions of sadness at the glimpse into Klaus’ shitty life on the streets, anger at whatever pieces of shit had hurt his brother, and shame at not having been there to do anything about it. 

He reached his hand out to hold against Klaus’ chest, and was unspeakably grateful when Klaus' hand slid overtop his. 

* * *

The next time Diego woke up, it was again to the ringtone, and he spared a thought that Klaus should never go into nursing. 

“Yeah,” he answered groggily, after fumbling for the phone three times.

“God, Diego, don’t scare me like that,” Allison yelled. Apparently he’d fumbled too long. Why hadn’t Klaus just answered? “We think we got one of the guys, but there was an incident—”

“Luther knocked the shit out of him, literally,” Ben yelled from afar, the shit-eating grin audible over the line.

Luther began yelling something in the background but Diego stopped paying attention. Klaus was shaking violently.

“Klaus?” he called, but got no response. 

“I’ll call you back,” Diego yelled towards the microphone, ending the call but leaving the phone on and bringing the screen as close as he could to Klaus’ face. He was pale, his mouth was panting, but his eyes were open and terrified. He was stiff as a board but trembling so hard Diego was worried they’d both end up with head injuries. 

“Klaus!” he called, shaking him by the arm, for all the good that would do. 

Klaus ripped himself away and slammed into the box wall in front of him, pushing Diego back with his legs.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he started mumbling, then speaking, then _yelling_. 

“Klaus!” 

* * *

Klaus had been doing well, all things considered. Sure, waking up disoriented, his head hurting, and trapped in the dark had been uncomfortably reminiscent of days gone by — which hadn’t even been the issue. He’d survived those days, he had toughed them out and was fine. Really.

What had thrown him was that _swooping_ thing reality did when one was flying with the most majestic of dragons. That _swoop_ where one minute you’re jumping and flailing amidst bright spotlights, soul-jarring bass, and sweaty bodies, and then you blink, just for half a second, and when your lids fly apart — _swoop_ — there’s bricks scratching at your cheek, teeth biting across a body you think might just belong to you, and a stranger’s groan in your ear when a moment ago you couldn’t hear yourself think. 

The _swoop_. 

Klaus and Diego had been walking back to the car. They had picked up a roast at the butcher for supper. It was the most mundane and quaint thing he’d done in a long time, and there was this aching tickle building up in his chest; the kind you got when you’re on a swing and you swing really high and on the way back down your lean back as far as you can. That tickle that starts under your collarbone and runs into your throat until you’re shrieking with delight. It was a deeply nostalgic feeling he wasn’t at all put out to relive. It made him feel alive the way few things did outside of drugs, but it also gave him endless restless energy that tended to get him in trouble

He’d been eyeing Diego — who had been pretending to be ignoring his antics — trying to decide if he could jump on his back without them ending up falling into the street and getting run over. And then Barret was standing in the street, appearing so suddenly and randomly that Klaus’ first thought hadn’t even been “oh shit, Barret” but rather “oh wow, someone finally killed Barret”. His second thought, when someone punched him in the kidneys from behind, had definitely been “oh shit, Barret”.

And then — _swoop —_ and when his eyes opened he was somewhere else, and his brain tried to find the most logical reason for it, and landed on “you whored your way back into a relapse”. That’s all. It wasn’t a big deal. 

Only...

After that, understanding that they were — that _Diego_ was — trapped in a makeshift coffin, buried underground, and it was his fault...okay, that had gotten to him a little bit. It would be weirder if it hadn’t! 

But it had. It had festered, and spread, and grew like a heavy film over his body until he was more shame than person. The kind of shame that made it feel real and true to know that if he had died — and it had stuck — during one of his many overdoses, that the world would have been a better place. That Diego, certainly, would be in a better place. Hell, without him, his detective girlfriend would probably still be alive, and they’d be together with a picket fence house and a dog. Okay, maybe that was too much. But that shame was so familiar it ached. It was the shame that, ironically, led him consistently back to the life that created it. A fucking ouroboros of cause and consequence.

So, really, he wasn’t doing too badly. All things considered.

But then Diego fell asleep again behind him, the arm over Klaus going lax, and his chest flared in panic, knowing suddenly so acutely that his brother had a crack in his skull and Klaus had to turn around and put pressure on it or he’d bleed out but he was pinned — he was pinned in place — he couldn’t move from behind the sandbags —- he couldn’t breathe —

— and _swoop_ — 

— the ground shook with mortar fire, there was smoke in his eyes, in his mouth, in his lungs. Someone was screaming. _He_ was screaming. He was screaming for the fucking medic who would never come. His hands were covered in blood and it wasn’t doing anything. He couldn’t do anything. Dave was dying and his hands were covered in blood and he was screaming and he couldn’t breathe. His airway was restricted, he was choking on blood. His cheek stung fiercely. 

He’d been shot! 

He’d been shot in the cheek, in the face, in the head. 

_Oh, thank god._

It was such a relief he could cry, was crying. Was sobbing. And when he tried to tip over onto his knees, his head knocked into something solid.

“ _Klaus!_ ” 

Another bullet pierced his — not a bullet, the sting of a hand. A hand at his jaw, pulling, tugging. 

“ _Klaus, you asshole, come back!_ ” The voice was far away, but despite the words, it didn’t sound angry, it sounded scared. “Come back.”

And fucking —

 _— swoop_ — 

— Klaus choked on his next breath, trying to breathe before he realized he was crying his eyes out. He coughed it out and tried to catch some kind of rhythm with his lungs. 

“Hey,” Diego called, panting heavily behind him like he’d been running at full tilt. “You back?”

It took him a few more seconds, but Klaus nodded, forgetting that Diego couldn’t see anything either. He wanted to pat Diego’s hand reassuringly but at some point, Diego had woven his arm over Klaus and was holding both his arms down. 

“Yeah,” he managed to croak.

“Jesus, Klaus,” Diego whispered into his neck. “What the fuck.”

Diego had heard of these little episodes but Klaus realized he’d never seen it in action before now. He guessed it wasn’t any more fun watching than living through it.

“You back?” Diego asked again, seemingly at a loss.

Klaus breathed in once, twice, three times, unconsciously following Diego’s rising chest at his back. Then, the inescapable blackness surrounding them seemed to intensify and the air got thicker and Klaus could feel it on the edge of his perception — the fucking _swoop_ just lying in wait to take him away again and he couldn’t, he wouldn’t go back. He couldn’t. 

Klaus braced his palms on the wood in front of him and shoved back, earning a pained grunt from Diego as he hit the box’s far wall. Then Klaus was turning. He was entirely too broad shouldered for it, but he had desperation going for him and if the blood from the scrapes on his bare shoulders eased the way, then great! 

“The hell are you doing? Stop!” 

Klaus ignored his brother’s cries because he was finally facing him and digging into his practically painted-on pocket. His shaking fingers pulled at plastic and he accidentally landed a soft punch into Diego’s chest bringing it up but — _click —_ then there was light.

The flame of his lighter was small but proportional to this tiny space. It was enough to light up Diego’s face, which was harried but so much less bloody than Klaus had been imagining. Finally, he was able to blink away the visions of Diego bleeding out and the tightness in his chest loosened.

“Shut it off,” Diego urged, blowing hard to put out the flame.

Immediately plunged back into the darkness, the panic crawled back up Klaus’ skin and his thumb was pressing down on the flint switch before he could even process it.

“Klaus!” 

Diego blew it out again, and Klaus kicked him as hard as he could. 

“Stop it!” Klaus yelled. He manoeuvred himself so the arm underneath him was holding the lighter — it wouldn’t be as good an angle but with his freed arm, he could cover Diego’s mouth. Which worked, until Diego kicked him back, hard, and the lighter dropped from his hand, and the darkness fell back into the box.

“Fire eats oxygen, you idiot,” Diego yelled at him. “You want us to die faster?”

Fresh tears fell free from Klaus’ lashline when he shook his head vehemently, all while picking up the lighter once more. 

“Please.” The plea was whispered but let loose a broken sob, and the lighter fell from his shaking fingers for the last time.

* * *

It was the sob that did it. 

Diego had been riding a panic wave ever since Klaus started shaking, and hadn’t been able to focus on anything but “make it stop” screaming like a klaxon in his head. But Klaus, for all of his dramatics, had always been oddly uncomfortable crying in front of them. Any tears let loose were singular; he would be up and gone before a second fell. 

But the Klaus before him had no such reservations. He was trying to be quiet, Diego could tell that much, but it wasn’t working, not with such little distance between them. Klaus was openly crying in front of him and, ironically, that brought Diego hurtling out of panic mode and gave him the space to realize just how much the darkness was affecting Klaus’ grip on his reality. 

The lighter flared back to life in Diego’s hand, and Klaus’ wet and bloodshot eyes sprang open. He seemed to hold his breath for a moment and Diego did the same, not realizing how having a moment to _look_ at his brother again would affect him. It was like the world was springing from 2D to back to 3D.

Still...

“If Five is right,” Diego began, all the harshness of a moment ago gone. “We need to conserve the air in here, and this is going to eat it up fast.”

Klaus’ face crumpled but eventually he nodded, looking away. 

“Hey,” Diego called him back and waited until Klaus’ eyes were on his face. “It’s just you and me in here. They’re going to find us, it’s not even a question. We just gotta sit pretty — some of us more than others —” a ghost of a grin alighted on Klaus’ lips “— getting splinters in our asses, and keeping a tight grip on our shit, okay?”

That momentary grin was gone again, and those big green eyes were full of apprehension.

“I know it will physically pain you not to be able to look upon all of this,” Diego said, trailing the light of the flame from his face down as far as he could go along his body and back up, “so take a good look and hold onto it.”

It was a joke, to lighten the mood, but Klaus shifted on his side and let his eyes roam Diego’s face more intently than he could remember any person ever doing before. And damnit if Diego didn’t find himself doing the same. Running his eyes over skin that was becoming pale again as the crying-induced blotchiness subsided, the cheekbones and full eyebrows models would kill for, a scrape he hadn’t noticed before on his temple, those full lips. And those impossibly large, expressive green eyes. Those eyes that had made a younger, more curious and slightly paranoid Diego wonder if his brother was made in a lab like their mom because they couldn’t be real.

When he realized those eyes he’d been staring at unblinkingly had been looking back at him for a while, Diego abruptly let the flame die out. 

Klaus inhaled sharply, but made no more protests. 

* * *

It was only when a shrill ringing began down towards their knees that Diego remembered he’d hung up on Allison earlier. Unfortunately, Klaus’ turnover had knocked the phone into an awkward place and the call dropped before they could reach it. It took Klaus many minutes of jamming his face practically straight into Diego’s armpit to contort himself enough for his fingers to reach it. 

49% battery left. Diego hit redial.

“Diego? Are you okay?” Allison asked from the speakerphone between them. 

“Yeah, sorry, I dropped the phone and couldn’t get to it. Where are you guys at?”

The update was that they’d caught one of the guys Klaus described but he had been part of the nabbing crew with Barret, not the throwing people in a box in a cemetery crew. They were hunting down the next lead courtesy of their new cooperative informant.

When Diego closed the flip phone again, feeling suddenly older, heavier, grimier than he had twenty minutes ago, he heard Klaus take that small, sharp inhale again at the loss of the minuscule light and thought, _fuck this._

He tucked the phone just under this waistband so it couldn’t get knocked down the box again by accident, and murmured, “hey, shove over.” Klaus didn’t have far to move but it was enough that Diego could roll to lay on his back with a grateful sigh of relief at getting the pressure off his arm and hip. Then he reached up and tugged. It didn’t take long for Klaus to catch on, and soon his brother was sprawled across half his body — one of his legs crossing both of his, Klaus’ bony hip almost digging into the tucked away phone, his arm wrapping around Diego’s torso, and Klaus’ head coming down hard on his shoulder, because he was a brat like that. 

It was nice.

* * *

Their siblings called again twenty minutes later — they found Barret and Allison had rumored him, but while he’d issued the orders and knew roughly which part of town they were in, details like exactly which cemetery and plot they were in was below his notice. They had rumored Barret to contact his henchmen but so far neither guy was answering their phone.

38% battery.

The cold was seeping the battery life, and their talking was sucking up oxygen, so Five decided that all further communications would be via text, and Diego tried to quell the fear in his heart that told him that phone call he just hung up on might have been the last time he’d hear his siblings’ voices.

Of course, Klaus just had to be a contrarian. He’d been doing better since they’d changed positions, sending his hands up and down over Diego’s body, surprisingly chastely, just exploring whenever he was starting to feel antsy. But Diego had felt the nervousness building, felt Klaus’ body get more and more tense, felt every fidget and sharp inhale against his body. 

Klaus was trying so hard, but he wasn’t doing well. 

“Remember when we were twelve and I broke my jaw?” Klaus asked rhetorically.

Diego shushed him, which had never worked in the past and did not work now.

“I know it’s a fond memory for you because I didn’t talk for two months,” he continued, puffs of air gliding across Diego’s neck. 

Diego wove his hand across their bodies and tried to cover Klaus’ mouth but Klaus gave him a warning bite across the meat of his palm and Diego hissed and retreated, his jaw clenching.

“It’s a fond one for me too,” Klaus continued, like someone who hadn’t just bitten a grown man’s hand. “But mostly for the part that came after.”

Diego inhaled, but refused to answer, and thanked his stars he had the threat of hypoxia to save him from _this_ conversation. _This_ conversation, that had lurked at the edge of all their reunions since leaving the Academy. Always present but always relegated to the shadows, never addressed directly by either of them but nipping at their heels all the same.

Because of course he remembered: Klaus had come out of the infirmary, their mom standing proudly behind him as he rubbed and worked his newly freed jaw. Then he opened his mouth and screamed — not out of fear but out of sheer freedom. When he was admonished for it, Klaus grinned unrepentantly.

“I had to make sure it still worked!” he declared, slurring his words slightly. “What if I couldn’t talk? What if I can’t eat solids anymore! What if I can’t sing or blow bubbles or blow kisses!” He threw one at each of them then, and twelve year old Diego had blushed furiously against his will while Klaus watched, fixated. 

But then Grace had prodded Klaus down the hall and to the dinner table, letting him talk himself out before he had to be presentable, and Diego had followed with some trepidation. Klaus had been on his best behaviour for these two months, as if his ability to speak was directly connected to his level of mischief. But now that he was free again, Diego worried those boundaries Klaus had pushed against would become targets to conquer once more. 

And he was right to worry. 

That night, Diego passed Allison’s room and saw Klaus occupying the chair at the vanity.

“Does Allison know you’re in here?” 

“Duh,” Klaus replied, which could mean anything. His face was inches from the mirror as he concentrated on applying a bright pink lipstick, the first and only Allison had ever received.

“I don’t think you should be doing that,” Diego warned, leaning against the door jam, feeling an unexplainable urge to look cool.

“-otta -ake -ure -ey work,” Klaus said awkwardly, his mouth staying open in an O shape. 

“Your jaw was wired shut, there was nothing wrong with your lips.”

“Excuse you,” Klaus said, smacking his lips. “They were always dry or gross with drool. If I moved them too much they’d start bleeding because of the wires underneath. They’ve basically atrophied.” He had done a lot of reading in these quiet months. He knew all sorts of fancy new words.

Then, Klaus got up from the seat with a flourish and used his hands as a ledge for his chin. “How do they look?”

Diego smirked to hide the nervousness, crossed his arms to hide sweaty palms. “You used to be better at coloring inside the lines.”

Klaus huffed dramatically, and narrowed his eyes. “Well look who just volunteered.”

“For what?” 

Klaus smiled innocently, which was never good. “Just hold still.”

Diego frowned and tried to put out his hands when Klaus approached him with great intent, but he was easily outmanoeuvred — mostly because he let himself be — and suddenly there were soft — definitely not dry — lips on his. That nervousness he’d felt before coursed through his body, starting in his stomach and radiating out all the way into his hands and fingers, his feet and toes, his head worst of all, making every part of him buzz, and when Klaus pulled back, Diego opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed.

Klaus didn’t say anything, looking uncharacteristically dazed himself. 

“That’s not how you blow kisses,” Diego said. 

Klaus grinned, “No, that’s old news.”

And when Klaus leaned in again, Diego found himself mirroring him, chasing that softness and that warm buzz, only to be pulled violently out of the moment by Luther’s door opening. All of a sudden, the presence in front of him was gone, darting down the hall, being chased by a yelling Allison, and Diego turned to find Luther’s cheeks as ruddy as Diego’s felt.

Luther’s eyes darted all over the place but when they swerved into the vicinity of Diego’s face, they doubled-back and landed squarely on his lips, making Diego cover them quickly with his hand. It was a bad move because now Luther knew something was up, but before an interrogation could start, Diego ran after the other two and sidestepped into his room. 

The tissue he rubbed hard against his lips came back pink. 

It was nearly forgotten. With five other siblings, lessons, training, there wasn’t much time to dwell on the small moments, bright and exciting though they may have been. But the next year, Klaus had snuck into Diego’s room after a day away at special training, his mildly bloodshot eyes rimmed with wobbly black lines, his lips unnaturally pink, and the bony lines of his body nervous and uncharacteristically shy. 

“Your lines are better,” Diego said, his eyes on Klaus’ lips, which curled upward happily.

Klaus advanced on him then, and without knowing exactly what would happen, Diego’s palms were already sweating, his heart rate ticking up exponentially, but he still had the presence of mind to stop Klaus before his lips fell on his.

For a heartbreaking moment, Klaus’ face was a picture of hurt, and Diego hurried to say, “Luther s-s-saw the lipstick o-on m-me last time.”

It took a moment for Klaus’ to process but the heartbreak in his eyes lifted and he reached for the box of tissues next to Diego’s bed, hastily wiping off all traces of pink.

When he was done, he hesitated again, until Diego smiled invitingly, and Klaus dove in.

The times after that — seldom as they were — Klaus always made a point of highlighting his bare lips before approaching. Even at sixteen, on the fire escape, Klaus had given him a shaky smile and his hand had come up to highlight his bare lips before leaning in just one last time — tasting of weed and alcohol — before he left for good, leaving Diego behind.

So yes, Diego remembered when they were twelve and Klaus broke his jaw. 

For Diego, those memories were sparks he tried to keep away from a pile of questions soaked in lighter fluid. Questions like, why did those kisses happen less the more time Klaus spent rolling joints and breaking into the liquor cabinet? Questions like, was Diego ever more than just a distraction? Questions like, _why wasn’t I enough_?

“It was one of the bright spots of that place,” Klaus continued. “You were one of the bright spots, for me.”

 _But only on the darkest days_ , Diego would have responded if he were willing to waste the oxygen. But he wasn’t, not on Klaus’ life. He pinched Klaus’ forearm hard, hoping that would get the message to shut up across. But Klaus was undeterred.

“Did you — do you ever wonder what it would be like? You know, now? I’ve learned a lot since then. Too much, some might argue. I’m way past blowing kisses, if you know what I mean.” Diego did not dignify that with a response. “Though I guess we don’t really have the clearance for that. Although maybe if we shimmied—” 

Diego screwed his eyes shut. Klaus was just looking for a fix from this darkness, this fear, and Diego was just there, like he’d always been before Klaus found the more potent stuff.

But the unburying of those memories that he kept so carefully and neatly tucked away flooded him with an aching _want_ , and the thought of dying like this, here, today, without ever tasting him again was no longer an option he could tolerate.

So Klaus was cut off by a hand grabbing a fistful of hair, and pushing him towards awaiting lips. They met at the corner of their mouths, and when they tried to realign, their noses were in the way, and then Klaus’ head bounced off the top of the box, but eventually they got it. Their lips slotted together perfectly and it felt so unshakeably right, like time itself had taken a breath when they parted that time on the fire escape and now was getting to exhale. That tingle in Diego’s stomach had matured from butterflies to something heavier but it spread nonetheless all the way to his fingers and toes and into his head, leaving him dizzy again. 

Klaus’ body against his became more insistent and he wanted nothing more than to meet it but then Klaus broke off, gasping for air and reality came crashing back in. 

“We can’t,” Diego whispered.

“We can,” Klaus gasped, pulling forward against the hand in his hair holding him back.

Diego cursed himself because Klaus wasn’t an idiot — he knew they couldn’t be doing this, not now, not when they had no idea if or when their air might run out. So this...this was Klaus giving up and using him to ride out the last hurrah. 

And Diego wasn’t going to let himself be Klaus’ suicide note. 

He tightened the hand that had grown lax in Klaus’ hair and controlled his descent back to Diego’s mouth for one — okay, three — short, innocent kisses, trying not to think of how this was closing the loop back to their very first one. Then he pushed his brother back down onto his shoulder and became a silent vise around him until the protests and wiggles stopped.

* * *

25% battery, a minimum of two hours since they’d woken up in the box, and one text from Allison saying they were still looking for the henchmen. Diego had refused to speak a single word since the kiss, and he’d started holding his breath about ten minutes after that. Klaus either hadn’t noticed the lack of up and down under his cheek or he simply remembered. 

The irony was not lost on him, but Diego had never felt a stronger urge to speak. He wanted to communicate that his headache was better, but his heart hurt. He wanted to ask Klaus if he knew that the breath caught in Diego’s chest held a soft and aching terror at the thought that it might be in vain? That the amount of oxygen Diego was saving for Klaus wouldn’t be enough, that Klaus would die here and Diego would be left alone in the dark with his body. 

Once the thought was born he couldn’t shake it loose. In the silence, it was all he could hear. In the darkness, all he could see. He wanted Klaus to speak again, to kiss him again, to do something and anything to feel less like a dead body in his arms. The slow in-and-out of Klaus’ chest against his side was the only thing keeping Diego tethered to reality and he ached with the need to share that feeling. 

So when Klaus broke a record-breaking forty minutes of silence with a whispered, “I can’t do this. Diego, man, please. Talk to me,” Diego longed to do just that, if only to tell him what kind of torture it was to deny him.

Instead, he shifted his arms to pull Klaus closer, more onto his stomach than side, and snuck a cold hand up his vest. Klaus yelped but didn’t protest further, not when Diego’s middle finger pad started gliding slowly and decisively across the skin of his back. 

H

I

Klaus snorted against his neck, but Diego could feel the smile against his shoulder too. Then he jerked, hard, as Klaus’s colder-than-cold-jesus-fucking-christ hand snuck under his shirt to write the same in response. 

They spend the next twenty minutes writing painstakingly slow messages to each other until Klaus’ finger falters between a B and an A and goes still. His chest is still moving in and out, and after several terrifying minutes, Diego concludes it’s the slower rhythm of sleep. He counts all the lucky stars he knows are above them.

* * *

Diego awakens to his nipple feeling like it’s being twisted clean off and gasps and hisses before remembering the whole conserving oxygen thing.

“You fell asleep,” Klaus accuses.

Diego clamps a hand around Klaus’ wrist until his offending fingers let go of the nipple they’re torturing. The fingers go willingly enough, but return as a hard jab to his chest.

“You can’t do that. You start breathing again when you’re sleeping. You’ll run out of air before you take that last big one and then what? You can survive indefinitely on one breath but you die because you’re sleepy? Screw you! Stay awake! You can’t sleep with a head wound anyway.”

So Klaus did remember Diego’s secondary power.

“I’m up,” Diego says, forgetting himself again, before clamping his lips shut around his next breath. 

Klaus is right, he needs to keep himself awake. He can hold his breath, and Klaus sleeping through this will conserve even more air. 

Diego distracts himself from the pull of sleep by running his hand up and down Klaus’s back, counting each of his ribs, then each of his vertebrae and vowing to get more healthy fats in his diet when they get out of this. It’s only when Klaus is back to sleep that it strikes Diego that Klaus had been truly panicked when he woke him up. Panicked on Diego’s behalf, and not his own, because in the face of the actual apocalypse and certain death, Klaus had barely been able to muster any concern above nonchalance for his own life.

Klaus isn’t worried Diego would breathe all the air he needs. Klaus is terrified that Diego will breathe in his sleep and slowly asphyxiate, which would only happen if no one is left to wake him up. 

He texts Allison, “SOS”.

She responds, “Hold on. Please hold on.”

17% battery.

Diego stays awake.

* * *

Some time later, Klaus’ breathing changes. At first, it’s not too dissimilar from the way you’d breathe during an unpleasant dream, and nightmares are a regular occurrence for Klaus. But when Diego takes the hand resting on his chest and shakes lightly, Klaus doesn’t wake up, and Diego’s finger on his pulse is registering a much higher heart rate than he should have at rest, even in the throes of a nightmare.

Diego shakes him harder and Klaus starts making noise.

“Please, stop,” Klaus moans. “I don’t know anything.”

Diego stops shaking and takes a gentler approach. He runs his thumb over Klaus’ temple in what’s hopefully a soothing manner. He glides down his cheekbone and back up over his ear. His other hand rubs up and down as much skin as he can cover. But Klaus doesn’t calm, and he doesn’t start to wake up.

“I don’t know anything,” he cries, and Diego has no choice. He weighs the lump of guilt in his chest against the amount of air they don’t have left and he puts his hand over Klaus’s mouth, forcing it shut. Predictably, that doesn’t improve Klaus’ anxiety, and Diego feels the hot tears streaking down Klaus’ cheek and nose and onto the back of his hand. The words of comfort are behind his teeth and it’s only the self-discipline he’s bragged about since they were kids that keeps him in check.

But when Klaus starts thrashing wildly, he lets his hand fall and pulls his brother close and locks him in against his body as tightly as he can, the way he had during the panic attack or whatever it was. Klaus keeps crying out but the thrashing subsides.

* * *

And then, the crying stops too. 

And Klaus doesn’t respond to the letters written on his skin. Doesn’t respond to Diego shaking him, prodding him, slapping him, and the only thing keeping Diego from losing his mind is his index and middle finger pads locked onto Klaus’ still too high pulse.

* * *

And then his pulse starts to slow, and Diego watches the phone battery get sucked dry as he calls Allison over and over and over to no response. He doesn’t even know what he’d do if she answered since he can’t speak. 

And he tries so hard to keep the tears burning his eyes at bay because if he gives in, it’ll be to gasping, shuddering sobs and what infinitesimal chance Klaus still has will be sucked up in Diego’s selfish despair. 

So he chokes on it. Pours all of his energy into holding Klaus tight, feeling his warmth, his pulse, and the pocket of air held static in his own chest, and he counts the beats under his fingertip. 

* * *

443 beats in, Diego’s count is interrupted when Klaus’ heart skips, and he just can’t stand it anymore. His mind is panicking with the need to scream Klaus’ name, to move, to cry, to look at him in the light. But Klaus isn’t lost yet and any molecule of oxygen he eats up doing any of that is a risk he can’t take. All he can do is lay still while Klaus lays on top of him, even stiller, and give into the weakness of letting silent tears run down his temples into the wood below his head. He thinks Klaus may feel the tears on his forehead because the hand laying next to his temple twitches minutely before it falls away limply. 

Diego knows, rationally, that it doesn’t mean anything, but it doesn’t stop him hating the fact that he knows that’s the palm that reads “Goodbye”.

* * *

123 disordered beats later, Klaus’ heart rate is sluggish and his chest is barely moving against Diego’s, who waits. 

He waits, observant as he can be in this inky black box.

84 slow beats later, Klaus exhales, and the inhale Diego’s waiting for doesn’t come.

Immediately, Diego has a hand in Klaus’ hair and he’s wrenching his head up to his in an aggressive echo of their earlier kiss. Diego uses his other hand to pinch Klaus’ nose and uses his lips and tongue to open Klaus’ mouth to force the breath he’d been holding into his lungs.

His hands go back to Klaus’ pulse but there’s nothing. His lungs burn and his jaw clenches but he pays them no mind as he cradles Klaus’ head, waiting, praying, begging for any sign he’s still there.

Nothing.

He waits, and he counts seconds. 

23 seconds.

45 seconds.

112 seconds.

No pulse.

And so Diego gives into what his body needs. He exhales in a gasping sob, and lets loose the screams and tears and anger and desperation he’s been holding in. He shakes Klaus, uncaring that his head is lolling unsupported. He begs for forgiveness, he gasps apologies into his hair. He calls him names, he curses him out, he berates him for wasting oxygen on words and memories and kisses, and he _hates_ him. He hates him for giving up, he hates him for leaving, he hates him for knowing this was how it was going to end. 

He hates him until his heart feels raw and he feels like his soul was scooped out of his body with a jagged spoon. Because he really doesn’t hate him. He really doesn’t. 

* * *

Allison calls, some time later. 

Diego lets it ring.

She texts.

He doesn’t check the messages.

* * *

Later, and very belatedly, he realizes that while the air is unsatisfyingly thin, and makes him feel like he has to take ten deep breaths to get any real amount of oxygen, there’s still a little left. Not enough, apparently, for a body ravaged by substance abuse for two decades. But enough to sustain Diego a little while longer.

And then, Diego thinks about how Klaus doesn’t deserve to have gone out like this, that he never would have wanted to be buried in a box for all eternity. He was afraid of the dark and he hated cemeteries.

And some long ignored part of his self-preservation is telling him he should try to breathe clean air again too.

So he reads Allison’s new texts.

They found the henchmen, they know which cemetery and which section and are driving out. ETA to location was 23 minutes, about six minutes ago.

* * *

He loses time after that. Without Klaus and his heart beat, this tomb is like a sensory deprivation tank. It’s dark, and it’s quiet. It’s death. He runs his fingers through Klaus’ hair, clings to the hand on his chest, and tries desperately not to think of the warmth leaching out of his body. 

He lets his mind go far away from this place, back to that place where they’re sharing a hard bed in an unspecified time of day, in an empty Academy, where nothing bad could ever happen.

So it takes a long time to spare attention to and process the evenly spaced, short puffs of warm air colliding with the skin of his neck. And even when he notices it, it’s like his brain is unable to get to step 2. He just lays there, with sirens going off in his head, unable to respond, for quite a long time until Klaus’ finger twitches on his chest, and then, finally, Diego’s fingers are wrapping around his wrist without any need for orders by his brain. 

A pulse.

Sluggish. So sluggish.

But a fucking pulse. 

Diego doesn’t know how and he’s never cared less about anything in his life. He’s so addled that his body doesn’t understand how to respond beyond sending his heart up in his throat and a steady stream of tears down his temples. He presses tightly closed-lipped kiss after closed-lipped kiss into Klaus’ brow and hair until Klaus moans gently and Diego’s body silently convulses around chest-deep, breath-deprived sobs.

* * *

He gets a text that they’ve arrived at the cemetery four minutes early and Diego starts to let himself believe they may yet get out of this.

He gets another text two minutes later that they think they’re in the right section, and are splitting up and looking for freshly turned dirt. 

Klaus stops breathing again a minute later.

Diego bloodies his hands in an irrational gambit to manually tear the box apart and dig their way out. This time, however, Diego knows better than to open his mouth. He doesn’t want to think about how much time his breakdown has robbed Klaus but he sure as shit isn’t doing it a second time.

Nothing can stop him, however, from forcing his held breath into Klaus’s lungs again. He tries to mimic some version of CPR by punching Klaus in the back as hard as he can with his limited range of movement, and this time it’s only minutes before Klaus comes back to him, and he should be relieved but every beat of his heart still feels like a grain of sand falling away, every second passing feels like a threat. 

The air is so much thinner and muggier at the same time, and the balance has shifted strongly in favour of carbon dioxide but Diego breathes it in anyway and locks it down, his heart rate starting to climb as his body struggles to get oxygen circulated. His head is swimming and he wants to say it’s the head wound but it’s not. Confusion is setting in. There’s air left but not enough.

He texts Allison again but it’s just a mess of numbers and capslocked letters he hopes convey how against the clock they are. 

The ringtone is jarring and Allison’s voice when it comes through the speaker is panicked and that’s how time for Diego just...starts to slow all the way down.

They’re not going to find them, he realizes. 

Not in time.

Diego feels the firm weight of dread settle in his chest, and yet he feels himself relaxing. 

“We can’t find you!” Diego wonders idly if she knows she’s yelling. “Diego, we’re all here, we’re split up and running. Five is jumping but we can’t find you. Diego, please, you have to give us something. You’ve got to remember something. Klaus has to remember something! Please, Diego, we need help!”

She knows he can’t answer, but his silence turns her yells into tears nonetheless.

Diego’s heart hurts for her, but he’s sinking, sinking, so it’s a distant feeling, like he’s watching a stranger cry on the street while he’s driving around the corner. He sinks and lets the faraway panic wash over him in a way that feels like calm. He runs the light from the screen — 12% battery — over Klaus’ curls, his pale skin and dark-lined eyes. He listens to his sister’s voice, registers the tone of it, the lilt, and finds it beautiful. He imagines his siblings running around above him in the dark and feels such a keen spike of love for them that he almost forgets himself and gasps.

When his hand feels weak, he drops the phone on his stomach and it slides off to the side somewhere. He takes Klaus’ hand and holds it on his chest. When the fingers underneath his clench tiredly, Diego closes his eyes.

All told, it’s not a bad way to go out. 

Seconds later, Allison screams — and it is a scream, so loud that Diego’s eyes burst open on instinct. “Five! Luther!” Allison screams with all her might. “It’s the mausoleum! They’re not in the ground, they're in the crypt!”

Diego wonders how the hell she figured that out, when he realizes the bright blue glow under his chin is not the phone’s screen, but Klaus’ fists. There’s a frown of concentration on his face, and his cold skin is sweating. He keeps it up for long seconds before the blue light starts to flicker off, bit by bit until they’re plunged back into darkness, and the hand under Diego’s goes completely limp again.

But moments later, everything begins to shake and there’s an explosive sound somewhere far above his head. Then another explosion, much closer, and their box is being yanked forward so quickly that Diego’s body betrays him with an instinctive gasp.

“Gently, you idiot!” He hears Five’s voice echo, both outside the box and through the phone a half second later as the box is settled on a surface.

Then there’s shards of wood raining down on Diego’s face as the top of the box is ripped off and he only has a moment to consider if he should try opening his eyes before Klaus’ weight is off his body, and Diego’s unceremoniously pulled out of the box and dumped onto the floor by powerful hands.

Still, he finds it hard to muster up annoyance when he finally exhales and the next breath is...well it’s still musty and humid because they’re in a mausoleum, but it’s so oxygenating that his head spins and his trembling limbs collapse when he tries to prop himself up.

“Klaus,” he’s gasping, brushing bits of wood off his face.

A white-eyed Vanya appears at Diego’s side, her small hand on his shoulder as she looks over to where Klaus is prone.

Allison is giving Klaus breaths and Ben is doing chest compressions while Five pushes Luther away saying, “You’ll break him in half, big guy. Let them work.” 

Diego tries to get up again to get over there but Vanya’s light hand is enough to keep him down and he realizes he may have been more impacted than he’d thought. Which means Klaus may be in even worse shape than he’d thought. Which shoots him with enough adrenaline to push his sister off and shimmy the two feet over to fall at Klaus’ side just in time for Allison to pull off and stop Ben’s compressions, her gaze intent on Klaus’ chest. 

Diego’s heart beats a thready six times before Klaus’ chest rises all of a half inch. But it’s a half inch under his own steam and everyone sighs or cries or laughs in relief. 

Diego lets himself drift then, his head against hard concrete, his blurring eyesight trained on that vested chest going up, down, up…

* * *

Diego awoke in the infirmary with an oxygen mask on his mouth and nose. Allison was at his side, and he learned that Klaus was recovering in his room. Allison and Vanya had voted for a hospital, but Ben had told them it wasn’t necessary. That apparently, in his years of shadowing Klaus, they’d started to theorize that Klaus couldn’t actually die in a permanent kind of way.

Which was a weird thought to process, but oddly reassuring. Until, that is, Diego realized that meant Klaus did actually die in the casket, that he’d held his brother's corpse in his arms twice, and Allison’s quick parenting reflexes were the only reason he threw up in the garbage can and not all over the sheets.

Klaus didn’t die again after they’d been found, which Allison looked uncomfortable saying so casually, so they set him up with an IV of fluids and oxygen and let him rest with Ben watching over him.

Diego, on the other hand, hadn’t been able to regain consciousness once he’d passed out and he had briefly been taken to the hospital for a CT scan. He woke up a few times after that, and he was cleared with a concussion but no further damage so he’d been parked in the infirmary under Grace’s watch for regular wake-up calls. 

He only vaguely remembered the hospital, but the next time he woke up, he did remember the conversation with Allison so things were looking up. He woke up several times again throughout the day and night, sometimes on his own, sometimes at his mother’s urging, and in the morning, Luther helped lug him out of the infirmary and into his own bed.

As he sank down into the mattress he reminded himself to upgrade to something more supportive, and to add a larger bed frame while he was at it, which was startling because he hadn’t realized he’d gotten to the point where he considered sticking around that long. He usually skipped back to the boiler room to sleep but having something here could be nice too.

Luther left him with painkillers and water and a promise to check in on him later, and Diego resolved to use the bit of energy he’d gained walking up the stairs to get back up and check on Klaus but between one blink and the next, it was night again, the house was quiet and there was a weight against his hip. Still sleep-addled, he reached a hand out and landed on a familiar bony ankle. He instinctively clamped down on it, afraid it would disappear altogether.

“Easy there, Sleeping Beauty,” Klaus murmured, shaking his grip and pulling his bare feet from the mattress. “Some of us need to be able to fit into our glass slippers in the morning.”

Diego stretched gingerly and turned on the side table lamp, making them both squint in pain from the abrupt burst of light.

Klaus looked tired, sitting slumped in the chair he’d pulled up to the bed, the scrapes at his temple and on his shoulders bare and scabbed over, but then did he ever look well rested? Whatever darkness lurked under his eyes was complemented by the layers of eyeliner or eyeshadow. There was a spooked look to him, however, that gave Diego the impression the man was one harsh word away from bolting. There was guilt there too, and not the kind he was used to hand-waving away with dramatics. 

“How’s the old noggin’?”

Diego took stock for a moment. “Better, still hurts but the headache’s not as bad.”

Klaus nodded, chewing on his thumbnail. “Good, that’s good. Do you know what day it is? Who’s the president?”

Diego felt a smile tug at his cheek. “No idea, I’ve been passed out, and don’t make me think about it.”

Klaus hummed. “Well you still sound like yourself, which is good. Really couldn’t have you losing any more brain cells. Between the boxing and head wounds you’re gonna end up dumber than Luther.”

Diego didn’t mention that Luther had gotten himself to and back from the moon and operated a satellite station for four years. He rode the wave of puffed up pride that someone thought he was better at something than Luther.

“It’s been two days and a bit,” Klaus continued, examining his thumbnail. The foot he’d retrieved from Diego’s grip was crossed over his knee and jiggling anxiously. For a second Diego side-eyed the painkillers on the side table and wondered if he should put them out of sight. Then he realized Klaus had all day to pilfer them if he’d wanted to. “It’s been three days, since Barret. Two and some that we’ve been home.”

“And you only come to visit me now?” 

“I’m a busy man, Diego,” he rebutted, drawing on his familiar airs to sound aloof.

“Uh huh. So who the hell is this Barret?”

The jiggling foot paused the length of a full breath, then resumed much more slowly, telling Diego he wasn’t going to be getting a straight answer.

“Old...dealer, customer, client, whatever, it’s so hard to keep track of old business associates, you know? Should have invested in a face book or something. Not that I’d want to check in on them now, obviously, I’m all clean and shiny now. Could have used a rolodex though, do they still make those? I could have just stolen dad’s I guess.”

“Klaus.”

“Yeah,” he answered, like he was agreeing to something. “He was...an old acquaintance. A very old acquaintance. One of the first...acquaintances. And I was dumb and naive and...trusting. Obviously I said too much and he had a really good memory. Also liked to keep one hell of a grudge, I mean, my god, it’s been like fifteen years, let it go. Move on. Live your life. The best revenge is a life lived well! I should send him that. I can knit it into a scarf for him. Did I tell you I got into knitting?”

Diego blinked at the math of Klaus having known this man roughly fifteen years ago and let his stomach curdle. According to Allison, Five and Ben had returned to the perpetrators and had come back smiling. None of the siblings asked for specifics but it was understood that this guy wouldn’t be a problem anymore. 

Still, Diego felt the need to interject. “Maybe don’t contact him again. Especially not to send him knitted hallmark greetings.”

“Yeah, good call.” Klaus agreed and slapped his hands and stood up like their meeting was over now that that was decided. 

“Hey, hey, hey, woah.” Diego reached out a hand and grunted as he levered himself upright. “That’s it?”

Klaus rolled his eyes and threw his hands out. “What else is there, Diego? You need to rest. You have a head wound and you lost oxygen for a good long time and not in the fun way. I’m not about to distract you from your recuperation. Mom was very clear, you need to sleep, and now I’ve gone and woken you up so you just know her android feelers are gonna know and she’ll be up here in a second with that face that says ‘Klaus, stop misbehaving now’ or ‘Klaus, stop distracting your siblings’ because let’s face it, that’s my main role here, isn’t it? To be in the way! And be a distraction! And get my brothers whacked over their thick heads and locked in a fucking grave to die the slowest, most agonizing death because when I was a junkie twink I couldn’t keep my fucking mouth shut about how much I needed and would do anything — really anything — for the drugs to keep from going back to that dark, airless panic chamber of a mausoleum in my head every single minute of every single day and don’t get me _started_ on the nights, and of _course_ he held a grudge that’s what these assholes do, it’s what they live for, and it’s very unlikely he’ll be the last one to come around and get his pound of flesh and I don’t know what I’m going to do —”

His tirade was broken only when his mouth ran into the fabric of Diego’s t-shirt and arms like steel came down around his flailing limbs, containing him against his brother’s body. His warm, strong, breathing body. 

“You’re going to shut up right the hell now, that’s what you’re going to do,” Diego said, his voice firm. 

Klaus screwed his eyes shut, letting loose a small stream of tears, and curled himself better into the crook of Diego’s neck, his hands gripping the t-shirt at Diego’s back.

“I’m sorry, Diego, I’m sorry.”

“What did I just say?” 

Klaus clammed up and held on tight, trying to just merge into Diego until he disappeared altogether. 

“You saved us, didn’t you?” Diego reminded him. “You used the spirits to show the others where we were. You saved us.” 

Klaus said nothing, but the desperation in his grip slackened somewhat.

“And I’m glad I was there,” Diego admitted against his cheek. “As much as it was one of the worst experiences of my life, if it had to happen, I’m glad I was there with you.”

Selfishly — oh _so_ selfishly — Klaus was glad too.

“Hey,” Diego leaned back slightly after several moments to look at him. “Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t die?”

Klaus felt his gut tighten. “I can. God just has a hate-on for me. Doesn’t want me in her sandbox. Sends me back every time.” Klaus could tell Diego wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not, but he didn’t feel like elaborating. Not now. 

“So you weren’t —” 

“I wasn’t what?”

“You weren’t just...giving up.” Diego pinned him with that strangely intense, investigative look, as if he could read Klaus if he just focused hard enough. “The talking, the reminiscing, the k-k—”

Klaus threw on a shadow of a salacious smile that didn’t quite cover the abject misery still lurking in his eyes. “That wasn’t giving up, stud. That was giving in.” He winked for good effect, but Diego didn’t budge. “It — I mean, I still die. And it sucks every time —” 

“Every time?” Diego demanded. Klaus breezed on by.

“But eventually I’m assuming my luck — if we want to call it that, I have thoughts — but my luck, let’s say, will change and one of them will stick. I just…”

“I was there,” Diego concluded.

“Yeah,” Klaus smiled wistfully, his gaze floating down to those lush lips. “You were.”

But Diego sighed and stepped out of his arms and Klaus was left adrift, cold, and confused. Diego sat on the edge of the mattress and avoided his gaze. 

“I need to get some more sleep, you should too. What time is it even?”

“What time is it?” Klaus echoes incredulously. “What just happened here?”

“Nothing!” Diego shot back before calming himself, forcing his voice into a calm gentleness. “Look, I’m glad I was there, I meant that. But excuse me for not being all warm and fuzzy knowing that it could have been anyone else — friggin’ Luther or Ben — and it wouldn’t have mattered, okay?”

“What?” Klaus returned, pulling off a full bodied frown, until he caught the flush rising up Diego’s neck. 

“You think I would have made out with —” he can’t help the shudder “— Luther? Or Ben? That’s gross, they’re my bro—” He cut himself off sheepishly, earning himself a chuckle from Diego as well. “It’s different. You know it is. Like it’s different for Luther and Allison.”

“Is it?” Diego asked, unable to mask the hope in his eyes.

Klaus smiled, though his brow was furrowed, and walked slowly back to sit beside Diego on the bed.

“Do you know that when I left this place, I went on a full makeup bender? Obviously among many other types of benders.” Diego raised his brow in amusement but shook his head. “Oh yeah. Mom and Allison had such tame palettes compared to what was out there. I mean, the glitter alone, Diego! But for a good two years at least after I left, I went just really hardcore on lipsticks. It was like a compulsion. I saw one, I had to have it. Whether it was off the shelf or out of someone’s purse, I had to have them all. I wore them constantly, changed colours three times a day to suit my mood. They’d get stolen every other week and that would be my excuse to steal — I mean legally obtain — brand new colours. And then one day I’m in a police station — don’t look at me like that, I was posting bail for a friend, probably, I don’t remember — anyway, I was in this police station and I hear someone call for Hargreeves and I turn around, but it’s not me they’re talking to. It’s you.”

Diego frowned. “I don’t remember that.”

Klaus shook his head. “You didn’t see me, but I saw you. And I was just gripped with this panic that you’d turn around and see me there, and not because I was a junkie in a police station, because let’s face it, I am who I am — or who I was — and that part was just inevitable. I was scared you’d turn around and see me wearing lipstick and you’d just...walk away, that you’d see it on me and think I was — that I didn’t want to —- you know. ”

Diego’s eyes were pitying and soft. 

“It’s stoner logic, I’ll admit, but it was pavlovian at that point. Lipstick meant no kisses from you, and here you were in your brand new life, away from this place, and there I was standing fifteen feet away from you in lipstick like an _idiot_. I wanted to run to the bathroom and wipe it off before you saw but I was handcuffed to the desk so I just — oh, right, yeah, maybe I wasn’t posting bail for somebody after all.”

Diego let his head fall between his shoulders, smiling.

“It couldn’t be just anyone, and you’re not just a stand-in. You’re Diego.” Klaus continued, thumbing at the corner of his mouth. “I can’t find this on just anyone.”

“What?”

“You smile,” Klaus said, soft and earnest.

“I smile?” Diego parroted with a raised brow.

“When we reunite, cross paths” he said grandly, then simmered it back down, “sometimes...even when I come into a room. You smile. Nobody else ever smiles when they see me.”

Diego hung his head again, his heart hurting. “Jesus christ bro, your bar is way too low.”

“Hmm,” Klaus returned noncommittally, running a fingertip down Diego’s bicep. “But look at the guns you’ve got from bench-pressing it.”

Diego chuckled and didn’t shake him off. Eventually he looked up at Klaus, looking tired but at peace. He looked like he was about to say something but then he was leaning in and they met halfway for the softest, sweetest, most uncomplicated kiss they’d shared since they were twelve years old, standing in Allison’s doorway. 

“I — I always wanted to. Want to. Will...want to. Even if you wear lipstick,” Diego admitted.

Klaus beamed and looked like he was about to throw himself back at Diego, who wanted to do nothing more...but who had already been conscious longer than most of his other stints combined and was starting to feel the pull of exhaustion again.

“Hey,” he called apologetically, his palm pushing back on Klaus’ shoulder, and snaking its way up to cradle his face when Klaus stopped in his tracks. “Let’s pick this back up in the morning, yeah?”

A hint of guilt crawled over Klaus again but before Diego could address it, Klaus grinned and threw himself back onto the mattress, leaving plenty of room next to him. 

Diego’s eyes roamed over the space, apprehension stalling him, but mercifully Klaus seemed to understand. He shimmied himself until he was laying flat on his back, and opened his arms for Diego to settle into, a mirror of their position in the box, but just different enough that Diego wouldn’t be waking up thinking Klaus was dead on his chest every ten minutes.

Leaving the lamp on, Diego molded himself against Klaus, using his arm and leg to hold him close, and resting his chin against his bony shoulder. Immediately, he felt Klaus’ fingers skating down his arm, and he was already mostly passed out when he felt strong, distinctive strokes.

H

I

Diego smiled, and gave himself up to the peaceful dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a note or a kudos if you liked it :)
> 
> Not beta read so please let me know if you spot any typos or issues, and if anyone's willing to beta Kliego-flavoured Klaus Angst fic for me in the future, let me know!


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